Nawaz Sharif

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Tenure: 6th November, 1990 - 18th April, 1993
Total duration: 863 days (2 years, 5 months, 12 days)
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Tenure: 26th May, 1993 - 18th July, 1993
Total duration: 53 days (1 month, 22 days)
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Tenure: 17th February, 1997 - 12th October, 1999
Total duration: 965 days (2 years, 7 months, 25 days)
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Tenure: 5th June, 2013 - 28th July, 2017
Total working days: 1514 days (4 years, 1 month, 23 days)
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Political party: Pakistan Muslim League (N)


Nawaz Sharif, in full Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, (born December 25, 1949, Lahore, Pakistan), Pakistani businessman and politician who served as prime minister in 1990–93, 1997–98, and 2013–17.

Business career and entry into politics

After earning an LL.B. from the University of the Punjab in Lahore, Sharif joined his family’s influential House of Ittefaq (Ittefaq Group), an industrial conglomerate with interests in sugar, steel, and textiles. Entering politics, he served as a member of a provincial council in Punjab; in 1981 he was appointed finance minister for the province, and, following elections in 1985, he rose to chief minister. As leader of the Pakistan Muslim League (since 1993 the Pakistan Muslim League–Nawaz [PML-N]), the primary party of the Islamic Democratic Alliance coalition, he was first elected Pakistan’s prime minister in October 1990. His election followed the dismissal of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto by Pres. Ghulam Ishaq Khan, who made use of a constitutional clause that gave him the authority, as president, to dismiss the elected government if he deemed that government to be corrupt or inefficient.
During his first term, Sharif initiated an ambitious program of economic reform, privatizing a range of state-owned businesses. Facing ongoing conflict over the Kashmir region and citing a need to secure itself against a nuclear India, Pakistan continued to defy U.S. calls for it to suspend its nuclear program; in response, the United States halted its financial assistance. Sharif also faced increasing opposition as he attempted to maintain the middle path between the Islamic right wing and the social democrats. In 1993 Sharif too was dismissed on grounds similar to those for which Bhutto had been ushered out of office. Bhutto then succeeded him, and Sharif continued to be her vocal opponent. In the 1997 elections held after Bhutto’s next dismissal, Sharif returned to serve a second term as prime minister.

Second term as prime minister

Soon after taking office for the second time, Sharif, backed by Bhutto, forced the elimination of the constitutional provision that had enabled his previous dismissal from office. Sharif also set about trimming the powers of the president and the military. His attempt to block the appointment of five additional judges to the Supreme Court late in the year, however, sparked a constitutional crisis. Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah, another of Sharif’s rivals, was later suspended from the court on a technicality. Rather than appoint a replacement for the chief justice, Pres. Farooq Leghari unexpectedly resigned from his post after bitterly accusing Sharif of attempting to grab sole power. The twin exits of the president and of the chief justice appeared to be another major triumph for Sharif.

Despite a strong mandate, Sharif’s government faced severe problems. Austerity measures implemented at the behest of the International Monetary Fund reduced government spending at a time when about half the country’s money was being allocated to servicing the debt. With an economy in shambles, enormous foreign debt, widespread corruption, graft, separatist fighting, and an ongoing dispute with neighbouring India, Sharif faced a difficult task in leading the country forward.
In the late 1990s, Pakistan’s economic situation continued to deteriorate. Sanctions imposed by the West in response to the detonation of nuclear devices by Pakistan exacerbated the crisis, and in 1998 Pakistan was nearing bankruptcy. Sharif soon found himself in conflict with a new army commander, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, and in late 1999 allegedly refused to allow Musharraf’s aircraft to land. Sharif was overthrown by Musharraf in a military coup d’état almost immediately and was subsequently tried on charges of hijacking and terrorism, for which he was sentenced to life imprisonment. In 2000, having agreed to leave Pakistan for 10 years in exchange for having his jail sentence commuted, Sharif was released from prison and went into exile in Saudi Arabia.
Encouraged by a 2007 Supreme Court decision which ruled that he was free to reenter the country, Sharif returned to Pakistan in September of that year, hoping to galvanize public support for the removal of Musharraf’s increasingly unpopular rule. The Musharraf government, however, bypassed the Supreme Court ruling and arranged for Sharif’s summary arrest and deportation back to Saudi Arabia within hours of his return, a move perceived by many as flouting the law. In a visit to Saudi Arabia several weeks later, Musharraf requested that the Saudi leadership cooperate in keeping his opponent abroad until the elections scheduled for early the following year had been held; in response, King ʿAbd Allāh expressed a growing reluctance to maintain Saudi complicity in Sharif’s exile.
In late November 2007, Musharraf permitted Sharif, along with his wife and brother, to arrive unimpeded in Pakistan on an aircraft provided by ʿAbd Allāh. Underscoring Sharif’s sustained popularity, his arrival was marked by crowds of supporters; these celebrations were largely unhindered by police. Upon his return, Sharif registered to run in the elections set for the following January, though he announced his refusal to stand as prime minister under Musharraf and indicated that an opposition boycott of the vote remained an option. In addition, Sharif called for the return of a number of Supreme Court judges whom Musharraf, anticipating that they would rule to annul his reelection, had purged.
In December 2007 Bhutto, who had also recently been permitted to return to Pakistan, was assassinated while campaigning in Rawalpindi. In the elections of February 2008, the PML-N won about one-fourth of the parliamentary seats up for election, finishing second to Bhutto’s party—led by her widower, Asif Ali Zardari—which captured about one-third of the seats. In March the two parties formed a coalition government.
Disagreements emerged within the governing coalition in the months following its formation, particularly regarding the reinstatement of the Supreme Court judges Musharraf had dismissed late the previous year, and these disputes threatened to destabilize the alliance. Nevertheless, in August 2008 the coalition moved to begin impeachment charges against Musharraf; on August 18, faced with the impending proceedings, Musharraf resigned. In light of ongoing differences, including disputes over Musharraf’s successor, Sharif subsequently withdrew the PML-N from the governing coalition and indicated that his party would put forth its own candidate in the presidential elections announced for early September. In the election, however, the candidates of neither the PML-N nor Musharraf’s party won enough support to pose a challenge to Zardari, and on September 6, 2008, he was elected president.
Friction between Zardari and Sharif intensified in February 2009 when the Supreme Court voted to disqualify Sharif’s brother from his position as chief minister of Punjab and to uphold a ban prohibiting Sharif himself from holding political office (the ban stemmed from his 2000 hijacking conviction). Sharif alleged that the court’s rulings were politically motivated and backed by Zardari. Meanwhile, the status of the Supreme Court judges dismissed under Musharraf who had yet to be reinstated remained a major source of conflict between the two rivals. In March 2009 Sharif broke free of an attempt to place him under house arrest and headed toward the capital, where he planned to hold a rally in support of the reinstatement of the judges. Faced with this prospect, the government agreed to reinstate Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and a number of other Supreme Court judges who had not yet been returned to their posts, a move seen as a significant political victory for Sharif. Sharif’s brother was also returned to his position shortly thereafter. In late May the Supreme Court reversed the February ruling that had upheld a ban curbing Sharif’s political activity, and in July Sharif was acquitted of hijacking charges. With the last of the legal blockages against him removed, Sharif was cleared to hold public office. Sharif remained a vocal critic of Zardari and the ruling Pakistan People’s Party, accusing the incumbents of corruption and economic ineptitude.

Third term as prime minister

Sharif executed a remarkable political comeback in 2013, securing a third term as prime minister when the PML-N won a resounding victory in the May legislative elections. The victory was not without controversy, though. The rival Tehreek-e-Insaf party, led by Imran Khan, denounced the elections as rigged and held protests in Islamabad for several months.
At the forefront of the agenda for the incoming administration were three issues identified as “the three E’s”—economy, energy, and extremism. Under Sharif the economy improved substantially, with higher growth rates, a stable rupee, and lower inflation. Energy and extremism, though, proved more challenging. Electricity demand continued to outpace supply, resulting in frequent and widespread shortages that were often exacerbated by the overall fragility of Pakistan’s power infrastructure. Meanwhile, the government struggled to respond to extremist attacks. After a devastating Taliban attack on a school in Peshawar killed about 150 people in December 2014, the government instituted a 20-point National Action Plan against extremism, which included measures for regulating religious institutions and trying terrorism suspects before military tribunals instead of civilian courts. Although at the outset the plan appeared to have widespread support throughout Pakistani society, political and institutional rivalries soon reemerged, hampering implementation.
In 2017 Sharif’s third term as prime minister came to an end when he was forced to resign as a result of a corruption probe. Suspicions of corruption—a constant accompaniment throughout Sharif’s political career—were amplified in 2015 when a trove of international financial documents known as the Panama Papers were leaked to the press, including information linking several of Sharif’s children to shell companies that had been used to purchase real estate abroad. Sharif denied any wrongdoing, but the Supreme Court voted in July 2017 to disqualify him from holding office. He stepped down and was replaced by Shahid Khaqan Abbasi.